Nakalele BlowholeA 100-foot seawater geyser at Maui's northwest tip, plus the Heart-Shaped Rock 200 yards down the cliff

Nakalele Point sits on the rough north-northwest shoulder of Maui, halfway between Honolua Bay and Kahakuloa village on the back-side stretch of Honoapiʻilani Highway. The cliff here is layered basalt eroded into shelves and platforms; one platform contains a vent — essentially a hole in the rock that connects to a sea-level lava tube. When the right swell hits at the right angle, water is forced up through the tube and explodes skyward up to 100 feet — taller, by all accounts, than any other blowhole in the Hawaiian Islands.

Conditions matter more here than at almost any other Maui attraction. The blowhole fires reliably when north or northwest swell is in the 4-to-6-foot range and the tide is mid-to-high. On smaller days the vent makes a wet exhalation and not much else; on big days it can fire ten times a minute and you can hear the gunshot crack from the parking lot. The trail down is unmaintained and steep — 200 feet of elevation loss over crumbling basalt — and people have been killed by being swept off the cliff edge when standing too close to the spout. Stay back 30 feet.

Two hundred yards south of the blowhole, a wave-eroded heart-shaped hole in the seaward cliff face has become the second reason most people come here. The Heart-Shaped Rock is best photographed from above with the framing of the Pacific behind. The approach is a separate 10-minute scramble; the marked side trail forks off the main descent. Bring water, real shoes, and the time to wait for the spout — most visitors give it ten minutes and leave; the keepers wait thirty and walk away with the photograph.